We've Been to Hell ... and Back!

[00:00:00] Speaker A: That's what makes you charming. [00:00:03] Speaker B: I say stupid things and I'm charming sometimes. Okay, well, that may be our intro to the show. Let's go. Alright, so I'm here with sky huff. That is my wife. My name is Kevin Huff. We're at the energy Impact center in Anderson, Indiana, super Mecca for pickleball, for those that don't know. And hey, kind of. I'm gonna defend that statement later on, okay? And we're in the pod pod. The pod pod podcast studio. [00:00:39] Speaker A: It's nice. [00:00:40] Speaker B: It really is. We have four mics in here, and as I said earlier, one camera. It's on me. It should have been on you, but we aren't gonna use video. This will be an audio podcast like most of them are. We're not YouTube material yet, babe. [00:00:55] Speaker A: Speak for yourself. [00:00:57] Speaker B: Okay, well, I will just say that I'm not pickleball. [00:01:02] Speaker A: Yeah, let's talk about pickleball. [00:01:05] Speaker B: Let's do. You got me into it. [00:01:08] Speaker A: I did. At work, I often apologize, or I say sorry, not sorry. And we're gonna tell that story today. [00:01:17] Speaker B: What do you mean, at work? You say sorry, not sorry. I don't even understand. [00:01:20] Speaker A: You know, at my work, it's a paddle racket club. And so for those who don't understand pickleball, they can find the noise. But how should I say this? They find that the noise is noisy. And when they're used to a softer, lighter sounding ball hitting a racket. So. And there's always obviously, court time issues and stuff like that, which is. Which is normal for a club. But when people ask, you know, how did Pickleball come to this community, of all places? Anderson, Indiana, or Pendleton, Indiana, I say, well, it's. It's actually my fault. And they just look at me like, you? How could you be at fault? [00:02:02] Speaker B: You know, it's not really your fault. [00:02:03] Speaker A: Um, well, technically, because there were people. [00:02:06] Speaker B: Playing Madison county, which is where those. [00:02:09] Speaker A: Two towns are, but none of them. [00:02:10] Speaker B: Before you. Before you got anyone involved in Pickleball. [00:02:15] Speaker A: Nobody wanted to expand it. Like you, Mister Ambassador. [00:02:19] Speaker B: Pickleball. Yes. I love Pickleball. [00:02:21] Speaker A: It is evident. [00:02:23] Speaker B: Well, I just wish you were playing more. [00:02:27] Speaker A: We're getting there. Sounds like a later episode. [00:02:29] Speaker B: Yeah, let's totally later episode. [00:02:31] Speaker A: Let's just table that. [00:02:33] Speaker B: So where are we starting today? Where we starting with? [00:02:35] Speaker A: We're going to start on a ship. [00:02:37] Speaker B: All right, take me there. [00:02:39] Speaker A: So we were on one of our early cruises, and I was preparing for a large fundraiser where I would be on stage in front of a thousand people and so I was actively working to get in shape, and I did not want to gain the traditional nine pounds on that cruise. So I was making you take the stairs and do every physical activity that I could think of that you might enjoy. And then we got stuck on the ship because we couldn't go to port. [00:03:09] Speaker B: We couldn't dock at Grand Cayman. The weather was too choppy. Choppy or the tinder boat waves were too choppy. Really? Yeah. [00:03:16] Speaker A: So I saw on the itinerary that they were going to play pickleball, and I was like, oh, you're gonna love this. It's like tiny tennis. [00:03:23] Speaker B: So you had heard of it before? [00:03:24] Speaker A: I had heard of it before because they were playing in our county, but it just wasn't very popular yet. [00:03:30] Speaker B: Seriously, how did you hear about it before? [00:03:32] Speaker A: It's funny. It was when I went to a town council meeting for an area town so I could open a coffee shop. [00:03:40] Speaker B: You know the words a town around here stand for our town. Anderson, you don't mean a town. [00:03:45] Speaker A: You mean just a. When we opened our coffee shop out there. [00:03:49] Speaker B: Okay. [00:03:49] Speaker A: And I had to get permission after the fact. I had already opened, but then I found out I was supposed to get permission to open a business. [00:03:56] Speaker B: Granted. [00:03:57] Speaker A: And so while I was sitting in that meeting in front of the, I don't know, they were commissioners or. I'm not even sure what the titles were. [00:04:05] Speaker B: Townsfolk. [00:04:06] Speaker A: Town. Yeah. The board and the lady was talking. There was a lady talking about repainting the tennis courts for pickleball out of Edgewood. Yeah, yeah, Edgewood. And so they said yes to, I think, one or two courts. And so I was like, what is pickleball? I was sitting there because I was intrigued. It's not a word that you had heard a lot. Pickleball. And so somebody next to me explained. [00:04:34] Speaker B: So back to the ship. Obviously, it was a windy day. We need to set the stage for what was going on. That ship was moving a little bit. [00:04:40] Speaker A: Windy day. [00:04:41] Speaker B: It was gorgeous out. Yeah, sure. But windy and rocking. And we're, I don't know what deck we're on, but you're looking at the ship's schedule of events for the day or whatever. [00:04:50] Speaker A: It's probably close to the top. [00:04:51] Speaker B: Probably eating, right? Beetle deck or something. Probably eating. [00:04:54] Speaker A: Um. I don't know. [00:04:56] Speaker B: We were on a ship. But you were trying to avoid nine pounds. I was probably going for all nine. [00:04:59] Speaker A: I. Well, I'm. I'm a list maker, so I probably circled everything that I wanted to do on the itinerary when they delivered it to my room the night before. [00:05:08] Speaker B: Probably so hundred percent chance. [00:05:11] Speaker A: I probably was like, if we can't. If we can't go to. If we can't go on the island, we're, let's go play pickleball. And you're like, okay. [00:05:19] Speaker B: And we'd been on Grand Cayman before we went to hell. [00:05:21] Speaker A: That's true. And back and back. [00:05:26] Speaker B: It can happen. They can happen in Grand Cayman. [00:05:28] Speaker A: Cash money. The bus driver, cash money. His son cash money, too. [00:05:33] Speaker B: Cash money. Junior, I think so he might say, this is cash money, too. I don't remember. And so you go, hey, you're gonna love this. It's like tiny tennis. I played tennis. I didn't play in high school on a team. I played through high school, but I didn't plan a team. I didn't know back then that that would have been smarter than football or track, whichever season that was. Also didn't play golf in high school. Again, not knowing that that would have been smarter than football or track, whichever season that was. Wish I had done both cough and tennis in high school. I did play tennis very briefly in college. [00:06:04] Speaker A: Before you hurt yourself. [00:06:05] Speaker B: I hurt myself. We can talk about that some other day. But I was not allowed to play basketball. And I was playing basketball, and there goes my ankle. So. Which is a really cool story, because that's actually. [00:06:14] Speaker A: That's how we met. [00:06:15] Speaker B: Kind of how we met. Yeah. Or at least. At least how we met. So you say to me, tiny tennis, let's go check it out. I go, I'm in. I didn't even think about the name Pickleball. It didn't bother me. It's a weird word we say in this county. It's the fun game with the funny name. [00:06:29] Speaker A: Right? [00:06:29] Speaker B: I give. I think Cheryl McKinney came up with that name when she was going through her pitch night to raise funds for what's now the Madison County Pickleball. Pickleball association. Yeah. Okay, so fun game, funny name. I didn't pick up on that. I just was like, sure, I'll play a game. [00:06:45] Speaker A: Did I make you go up the stairs, or did you negotiate? If I'm going to play a game with you, you're going to let me play. Let me take the elevator. [00:06:53] Speaker B: That was over six years ago. I don't have any idea. [00:06:54] Speaker A: I think you negotiated. That sounds like you. [00:06:57] Speaker B: I would have probably said, let's take it easy, chick, slow roll this thing. [00:07:00] Speaker A: So we get up there. [00:07:01] Speaker B: Little old lady. [00:07:02] Speaker A: Well, first of all, it's a wood paddle. [00:07:05] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Totally. [00:07:05] Speaker A: And, you know, the traditional, like, wreck. [00:07:09] Speaker B: Smushy marshmallow. I didn't know it was a marshmallow ball at the time. [00:07:12] Speaker A: I don't. [00:07:13] Speaker B: It was a jugs. I'm pretty sure it was a jugs. That's how. That's why I bought jugs. Yeah. I'm pretty sure it was jugs. [00:07:17] Speaker A: It just looked like a whiff of ball to me. [00:07:19] Speaker B: Sure. [00:07:20] Speaker A: And so we didn't know how to get on the court or who to talk to. We're just kind of, like, wandering inside the net. [00:07:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:28] Speaker A: A net. [00:07:29] Speaker B: A net. But it had also, like, some structure. And there was a door. Yeah. [00:07:31] Speaker A: Almost like a hockey rink. [00:07:33] Speaker B: Yep. So we found the door. There was two courts, by the way. There was Holland America. Neue Amsterdam was the ship. Oh, no, no, no. It can't be. I think it was a princess. It was the princess cruise. There's no question. Yeah. Cause it was our second cruise. [00:07:45] Speaker A: And so we get up there, and the lady sounded like a little old lady. She sounded like wazowski. Yes. [00:07:51] Speaker B: The monsters, Inc. And she said, stay out of the kitchen. Like. That's what I remember her saying. There was other things she taught me. [00:07:57] Speaker A: I laughed out loud. [00:07:59] Speaker B: But that's the one thing I remember. So she says, you're new. You're beginners. You're going to have to play with us on this court, not the advanced court over there. [00:08:06] Speaker A: And looking at both courts, they looked the same to me. So I was like, whatever. [00:08:09] Speaker B: Well, we were with the. We were with our elders on the court that we were on. [00:08:13] Speaker A: Of course. [00:08:14] Speaker B: Yes. [00:08:14] Speaker A: Of course. [00:08:15] Speaker B: There were younger people on the other court. [00:08:17] Speaker A: I don't. I don't recall. [00:08:18] Speaker B: Yeah, they were younger than us, but we were with our elders. [00:08:22] Speaker A: Right. [00:08:23] Speaker B: We did really well in game one. [00:08:25] Speaker A: They taught us well. [00:08:26] Speaker B: They did teach us well. There was a few things. But. I mean, they weren't dinking and dropping. But it actually felt like tiny tennis. [00:08:34] Speaker A: There was a lot more smashing, which I really liked. [00:08:38] Speaker B: I feel like I'm taking over the story. Shall I continue? [00:08:40] Speaker A: Well. So we play. I don't actually remember all the details. [00:08:45] Speaker B: We played one game. [00:08:46] Speaker A: We played one game and we won. [00:08:49] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. We smashed the old ladies. [00:08:50] Speaker A: And. I mean, like, we're both athletic. [00:08:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:53] Speaker A: I mean, you wouldn't know it by looking at us, necessarily, but we were. [00:08:57] Speaker B: And she said. [00:08:58] Speaker A: And she's like. You go over there. [00:09:00] Speaker B: You two go over there. And she pointed. The advanced court. And I was. It. I think it was after we played on the advanced court. Because if I'm not mistaken. We also did really well on the advance court. [00:09:09] Speaker A: I think we did it. I think we did okay. [00:09:11] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, it was our first time ever, and we were. I feel like we won one or two and lost one or two. We were pretty even. [00:09:17] Speaker A: It's always important to get your serves in, and I'm pretty good at that. At least back then I was. [00:09:21] Speaker B: I'm better at that in tournaments, but in recipe I'm not because I just want to go for things I like to learn. I love my mixture of serves. [00:09:27] Speaker A: I think. I think it was the serves. [00:09:29] Speaker B: We'll work on that another time. [00:09:30] Speaker A: Okay. [00:09:31] Speaker B: Talk about that another time. [00:09:32] Speaker A: That's all I remember is as long as I get my serving. Yeah. And then. [00:09:37] Speaker B: And the whole two bounce rule, that second bounce. [00:09:39] Speaker A: Yes. [00:09:40] Speaker B: I definitely had a little struggle with that the first game or two, but it's no big deal after that. [00:09:44] Speaker A: Still gets me every once in a while. So we get off the court and I don't know if it was because the calendar of events said that we had to stop or if we were done. [00:09:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. They were kicking us off for basketball or something. [00:09:58] Speaker A: Yeah, whatever. Yeah. They had a pretty tight itinerary. And you said, oh, no. [00:10:02] Speaker B: I looked at you and I said. [00:10:03] Speaker A: Very seriously, you said, I'm going to be world champion. There's no question in my mind, okay. [00:10:10] Speaker B: I was like, if this is pickleball, I am going to be the world champion. It will take me about three weeks. That's what I was thinking. [00:10:15] Speaker A: And I tried to hold in the laughter because, honestly, the reason I introduced you to the game is because I wanted you to find a sport that you loved. I wanted you to be active again and have fun. You had told me I would exercise if I could do something that was fun. [00:10:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Look, a quick personal note. Got way out of shape. I had a couple knee surgeries. It's been now 18 or 19 years. We didn't have talent yet. So 19 plus years ago, and I gained a lot of weight. I had two back to back surgeries, six months in between ish second surgery. I couldn't put any weight on it for like six straight weeks. [00:10:54] Speaker A: You're traveling for a living. [00:10:55] Speaker B: I had been traveling for a living, so I gained a little weight before that, but I gained a lot of weight after that. And, I mean, you know, I've posted about it on Facebook before. I'm not ashamed of it. I'm just working on it. So I was like, yeah, this is great for me because when I would climb stairs in Denver in particular, I would be winded by the top of the stairs. And I mean, who wouldn't? [00:11:14] Speaker A: I mean, really? [00:11:15] Speaker B: Well, no, no, I didn't. I wasn't winded before. Wasn't winded when we lived there. I was fine. Okay, I wasn't winded the first few years, but after I gained that weight, I really was winded walking up a flight of stairs in Denver. And I was like, this sucks. Like, winded, winded. Like, that was brutal. And I was like, I'm walking up a flight of stairs. What's wrong with me? Well, I got out of shape, gained a lot of weight, got out of shape. And so I so grateful you introduced me to pickleball. I'm going to take it from here. We come back to Indiana after the cruise, and I got to find a place to play, right? So I'm sitting at a church. I'm sitting at. I'll get it right. Wesley free Methodist church in edgewood also. [00:11:56] Speaker A: Well, it's Anderson, but it's just right there on the edge of edgewood. [00:12:01] Speaker B: We'll cut that part out. I'm in edgewood. I mean, anderson at Wesley premed Methodist Church, sitting on the gym floor at a table, waiting for kids to register for a homeschool class that I'm teaching. I think it was a business class. And I'm like, well, there's no bait at my table, so I'm going to jump online real quick and figure out where I can play this game called pickleball. So I find placestoplay.org. Most people that play pickleball probably have heard of that website, placesthenumbertoplay.org. And I jump on there, and there's a flashing light right where I'm sitting, and there's nothing else on the map. I'm like, are you freaking kidding me? Like, there's no way to play this game called pickleball. And guys, I was a little dense that day. [00:12:42] Speaker A: Edgewood somewhere. [00:12:43] Speaker B: No, I was. No, we didn't have it. I didn't have you did I didn't. [00:12:47] Speaker A: Well, I told you I didn't remember. That's how I found out about. [00:12:51] Speaker B: I was quite dense. So outdoor courts, I zoom in and I realize it is blinking not because of where I'm at, but because that's the place to play. I look down and I'm sitting on a kitchen line at the table I'm at, and there's two courts in there. I'm like, are you kidding me? So I reach out to people, they go, sure. You can come and play. We play Tuesday through Thursday mornings at 09:00 a.m. Total retirement community. Right. Britain falls. Some of my favorite people. Britain falls out in the Fishers area in Hamilton County, Indiana. County next door to us. But they're driving over to our county to play because they don't have anywhere to play play either. [00:13:30] Speaker A: Right. [00:13:31] Speaker B: So playing it was the free Methodist. I'm. I'm. I show up next morning at 09:00 a.m. Cause I get approval to join them. I am by far the youngest person there at 49 years old. [00:13:43] Speaker A: He's using his fingers to count. [00:13:45] Speaker B: I am. I had just turned 50, I believe. No, I was 49. Yeah. Cause I'm 55 now, so I was 49. [00:13:53] Speaker A: Sure. [00:13:54] Speaker B: It's easy math. Sorry, dad. Okay, so it was cute to watch. Thank you, babe. So I'm showing up at 09:00 a.m.? Remember, I'm almost the world champion. [00:14:08] Speaker A: Right? So you had a goal. [00:14:09] Speaker B: I did. So I get out there, and they're like, that's an illegal serve. That's an illegal serve. They're calling me all kinds of crap, and I'm like, what do you mean it's an illegal serve? Well, it's above your waist or the paddle's above your wrist. [00:14:19] Speaker A: And I'm like, they are very serious players. [00:14:21] Speaker B: I feel like I'm bowling here, and I got waxed all day long by my elders. [00:14:29] Speaker A: They're good. [00:14:30] Speaker B: They all are. [00:14:31] Speaker A: They really are. [00:14:32] Speaker B: We see the memes. We know the stories. We've all been involved. If they've got two knee braces and can barely walk and they look like they're retired, you're screwed. Like, that's just. [00:14:42] Speaker A: I think their oldest player is, like, 95 years old. [00:14:45] Speaker B: Well, he wasn't in our group. He plays where you're at now, but he wasn't in our group at the time. [00:14:49] Speaker A: And he's consistent. [00:14:50] Speaker B: Yeah, he's so good, too. I mean, a little slower at 95 than he used to be, probably, but. [00:14:54] Speaker A: Man, he's good at some good reflexes. [00:14:56] Speaker B: So, anyway, I proceed to get my butt whooped, and I'm like, okay, it's on like Donkey Kong. So I start working on my game a bit now, by working on my game, I do not understand that there's drilling. But remember, I travel, right? So I get to go to Seattle often, right? Birthplace ish of pickleball, since Bainbridge island is right out there. And as I go out to Seattle, I find Pickleball Central. And back then, which was pre COVID, they had pickleball in their facility. Facility. So it's a store. It's the number one store, I still think probably online. But I would go to Pickleball Central and I would play pickleball with them and I would learn a ton and I'd bring it back to Indiana. And I go, guys, look what I learned. And this group that we had together, which I'll go back to in later, let's do an episode on that. The whole how we built out courts in the area. [00:15:42] Speaker A: But I think we should point out what you just said, though, and that is that you instantly became a student. [00:15:49] Speaker B: I did. [00:15:49] Speaker A: Of the history of the sport. [00:15:51] Speaker B: Yes. [00:15:52] Speaker A: You are fascinated with the whole progress of when was it created, who created it? How do I learn more? [00:15:58] Speaker B: And you know what paddles I bought? [00:16:00] Speaker A: I don't remember. [00:16:01] Speaker B: Wooden kanga paddles. [00:16:02] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:16:02] Speaker B: Because we didn't know they had something. [00:16:04] Speaker A: No, we didn't know. [00:16:05] Speaker B: So I show up. [00:16:07] Speaker A: I mean, you'd search. All things were coming from. [00:16:10] Speaker B: I showed up without a paddle. Sky. And the old people let me, I shouldn't say old people. My elders let me play people probably. [00:16:16] Speaker A: In that old group now. [00:16:17] Speaker B: I mean, fifties, they were sixties for sure. [00:16:20] Speaker A: I mean, like, yeah, I mean, the kids now would say were old, but I'm just, I knew as soon as you saw the game and you had that sparkle in your eye and then, of course, you verbally stated that you're gonna be world champion. [00:16:35] Speaker B: Yes. I had to go get it. [00:16:36] Speaker A: I knew I had you hooked on a sport and you were gonna start being active. [00:16:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:41] Speaker A: What I did not anticipate it's how much it would take over. Like, your, your, it became not just a sport and exercise, but it became a hobby. And you really did embrace being an ambassador for the sport, which again, we'll, we'll have another episode on that. Just alone. But there's a good reason for it. [00:17:04] Speaker B: Selfish reason. [00:17:05] Speaker A: But you had another goal, and we can touch upon that too, because you traveled so much during that time. [00:17:11] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I wanted to play in 50 states against 550 s, and that became difficult quickly. But I got to play with some amazing people. Love Maggie. Reminds me. She's now Maggie ramen chow. Great lady. Played with me in New York. Rick Witzkin. Played with him in Indiana. Great guy. Um, played with, uh, some 50 s down in Texas. Peter Raimondo. And I'll have to look up the name of the lady. She's so sweet. And I can't believe I can't remember her name, but it was someone in Missouri five to six years ago. Yeah. Cassandra Gerkey. Most people know who Cass is. Great gal like, playing with her weebly. Weebly. [00:17:56] Speaker A: Did I say that right? [00:17:58] Speaker B: Oh, Webby. [00:18:00] Speaker A: Webby. [00:18:01] Speaker B: My boy Webby. And his buddy Eddie. No, Webby. Not a 50. [00:18:05] Speaker A: No. [00:18:07] Speaker B: But a personality that most people know, or at least I shouldn't say most people. There's a decent number of people that listen to podcasts that would know who Eddie and Webby are, or Webby and Eddie and Webby, which is Webster Papadopoulos. He and I had. Oh, that's another episode. But we. But the fast version is. Yeah. And there's a video of me playing singles against him and. [00:18:26] Speaker A: Yep. [00:18:27] Speaker B: Getting beat. [00:18:28] Speaker A: Yep. But you have played in a lot of different states. [00:18:31] Speaker B: I've played in 25 states and multiple countries at this point, including tournaments in other countries. [00:18:38] Speaker A: In other countries. [00:18:39] Speaker B: I played in Canada. Eh? You played a tournament in Toronto. [00:18:44] Speaker A: How did I miss that? [00:18:45] Speaker B: No, you. Well, you weren't in Canada with me. [00:18:48] Speaker A: No. [00:18:49] Speaker B: So I picked up a blind partner there. I mean, we didn't know each other. I did a need a partner thing on what was probably pickleballtournaments.com back then. [00:18:58] Speaker A: Okay. [00:18:59] Speaker B: We played okay together there. I remember Steve Deacon was there. That was cool. One of the first pros I got to see play on a court live. And then we went. And then I flew straight to Seattle. You may not remember that, but I went from Toronto straight to Seattle, where I played in the first annual Bainbridge Open Cup. [00:19:16] Speaker A: I do remember that. [00:19:18] Speaker B: And I met Barney McCallum, the last surviving member of the people who introduced or who created this game. And I got a picture taken with him, and it was a total honor. I played with Joe Henderson there. We did okay also. But I had really hurt myself bad two days before. I could barely lift my right arm, and I actually had to hit some shots left handed. And everyone thinks they would have done better. We would have done better. But I think we were three and three or four and four or something like that in the round robin and moving into the brackets, and I just couldn't. I mean, I was hurting. I couldn't lift my arm. It was brutal. Tennis Hubble was what it really was. [00:19:55] Speaker A: A ref in that I did. Yeah. [00:19:57] Speaker B: Yeah. I refereed some of the four, five, and 50 matches, and that was my first. No, I had done regionals, I think, before that. Anyway, it was my first opportunity to certainly ref at the 50 level. It was pretty cool because generally, they were like, they call their own shots. I mean, they call their outs. It's pretty easy. We'll do another episode on that, too. We're lining up all the episodes. This is our first episode. [00:20:21] Speaker A: This is our first episode together. [00:20:22] Speaker B: Right. So we're. [00:20:24] Speaker A: I mean, like, ever. Like, ever. [00:20:26] Speaker B: We don't usually talk this much in. [00:20:28] Speaker A: Any given day together. No, I'm kidding. From. [00:20:32] Speaker B: That's from my business partner, Caesar, who says the average family talks or average couple times. [00:20:36] Speaker A: Well, I think the point of this, this first episode was to share my heart as your spouse. [00:20:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:45] Speaker A: And the importance of knowing how to help your partner who wants to become more physically active, who might be searching for community. So in addition to wanting more and more active lifestyle because you traveled so often, you didn't have a friend group here. Nope, I had a friend group here. I had family here. But you didn't have the time to really establish that. And that is something that pickleball gave you as well. [00:21:18] Speaker B: Yeah. In fact, we go back to me meeting my elders at Wesley Free Methodist Church and getting my butt kicked. The first couple of times I played with them, I got to a point within a couple months where they were like, you're. You're getting good. Like, I was winning most games, no matter who I was partnered with. There was a couple people that still had my number that were really, really the better players in that group. But I went to my pastor and I said, hey, there's this game called pickleball. I want to introduce it to people at our church to see if anyone wants to play on Monday nights and why. I said any night. And Monday nights had just opened up because basketball had just finished and not, like, for a season or for a league, but they had decided to not continue running basketball there in the evening time. So I get up on stage literally dressed in all white, having fun. I got white, white shorts on, long white socks on white tennis shoes, white shirt, white headband, white wristbands. [00:22:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we still have a picture of it. [00:22:07] Speaker B: Yeah, we definitely had a headband. Yeah. And then I actually hit balls out into the audience. [00:22:14] Speaker A: Yes. And they just kept them. They didn't give them back to you. [00:22:18] Speaker B: And I ran a video that was the happy camper Mars. I gotta look that up because at the time, it was the best video I could find on how to play pickleball. [00:22:33] Speaker A: I don't know. I got it. [00:22:36] Speaker B: Martus camp, how to play pickleball on YouTube. And it's funny. It's Marta's camp, and it's literally just out in the middle of. I don't know, Idaho or somewhere. But it's got 3.4 million plus views on YouTube. [00:22:48] Speaker A: Wow. [00:22:49] Speaker B: So I played that video real quick at our church. It's two minutes, 49 seconds. I hit a couple balls in the audience and I was like, come join me on Monday night thinking, I hope three other people come. [00:22:57] Speaker A: Right. We had already introduced it to some of our friends. [00:22:59] Speaker B: We had. And I mentioned Cheryl McKinney earlier. We'd introduced it to Paul and Cheryl McKinney. Great people, great fun, really great ambassadors. We introduced it to James and Robin Abels. Great people, great fun, really great ambassadors. We introduced it to Ed and Ginny Spencer. Ed still plays frequently. It wasn't for Jenny. That's okay. [00:23:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:20] Speaker B: And we introduced it to, there was one other couple. I feel, um, maybe that's it. I think that might be it. But we didn't do them all on the same day. [00:23:32] Speaker A: No. [00:23:33] Speaker B: So I think we did Ed and Ginny one day, and then we did Robin and James and Paul and share. All different, all together, but a different day. Anyway, fast forward a little bit. And I've talked to the pastor who says you're so I do. The announcement. It's Monday night. I've got one tape court. One court taped, excuse me, in the middle of our, middle of our gym, which is a basketball court. [00:23:50] Speaker A: Yep. [00:23:51] Speaker B: I'm just figuring this out, right? I'm like, I hope I got the lines right. I got, you know, in my head, I got, you know, 44 by 20. Yeah, of course. I mean, looked up how to tape it, but, you know, just throwing down, just throwing down lines isn't easy. Squaring them off and all that stuff is kind of important. So I'm probably going to, too much work. I'm figuring out the diagonals and I'm like drawing little arcs and I blocked that out. [00:24:10] Speaker A: I don't remember that. [00:24:11] Speaker B: Long story short, 30 some people show up the first night and I'm like, oh, what do I do now? There's only four people on a court at one time. Yeah, 30 some people, I grab a sheet of a, you know, a big tear off sheet of, you know, post it paper, slap it up on the wall. I just start writing names down. I'm like, okay, we're just gonna play to seven. And then everyone's off. And we just ran everybody through once and it took like 3 hours. I remember that the next week I was like, I gotta do something. So I figured out how to get two courts. Now I was going the same direction as the basketball court, so I was like, I can do two. So I did two courts the same direction as the basketball court. And the second week, 40 some people showed up was a little better because I had two courts, but it was still the same fiasco. And I was like, this is ridiculous. So I got out. I got a long tape measure, and I really got to business in there. I was like, wait a minute. I can get three courts in here. [00:24:58] Speaker A: And there are still three courts. [00:24:59] Speaker B: And there are still three courts in there today. So we got three courts in there. We started running leagues in, like, within four to five months. [00:25:07] Speaker A: Yep. [00:25:07] Speaker B: We became an attraction place for pickleball players. We did a lot of free clinics for people to learn how to play the game. Fast forward six years later. We've had over 1100 people come through and play pickleball at our church. Yes, 1100 plus people that have signed waivers. Like, I have a stack of waivers. We can just. There's no question of how many people have come through. So we gotta count. [00:25:26] Speaker A: I meet a lot of people that you've taught. [00:25:29] Speaker B: That's cool. [00:25:30] Speaker A: Yeah, they always say hi. [00:25:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that's really cool. Had a guy from San Francisco in just this week through a post out on Facebook and said, who knows where to plan? I was like, oh, reach out to me. Like, we'll connect you. The dude and I have played one, two, four times together already, just since Wednesday of last week. [00:25:46] Speaker A: That's fun. [00:25:46] Speaker B: Gave me a huge thanks this morning. He said, hey, I was. He's in another county over the other direction. What the heck is Madison? What's. What's Munsey's county? [00:25:53] Speaker A: Delaware. [00:25:54] Speaker B: He was in Delaware county. He goes, yeah, I told some people I connected with you, like, oh, you got the right guy. That was cool. [00:25:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:59] Speaker B: I always like to hear that. I know that I kind of am, but I also like to hear it because there's so many of us now that are huge ambassadors for pickleball in our area. [00:26:07] Speaker A: Sure. [00:26:07] Speaker B: I could name off name after name after name. One cool person, Steve Jones. I met him at another church, Fall Creek Christian Church, which is in Pendleton, which is one of the towns we talked about earlier. And I remember seeing him at a Ihop. Like on the. I was on the way in and he was on the way out, or vice versa, I can't remember. And we were like, hey. Hey. Like, we recognized each other. [00:26:26] Speaker A: Yep. [00:26:27] Speaker B: Total ambassador for the sport. Been playing for four or five years at that time. I think he's been playing for at least ten years now, which is, by the way, forever. It's like dog years on pickleball. If you've been playing for ten years, you're a lifer. [00:26:37] Speaker A: You really are. [00:26:38] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't care how old you are. [00:26:39] Speaker A: You'Ve seen a lot of change. [00:26:40] Speaker B: Oh, gosh. It's a lot of change since. [00:26:43] Speaker A: A lot of change. Really fast. And then you progressed really fast. [00:26:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I did. [00:26:50] Speaker A: But that is, I mean, like, ideally that's what I wanted for you. [00:26:54] Speaker B: Yeah. And I'm super grateful. I really am. Like, I can't even begin to tell you. It's. Sometimes you go back and, man, I wish I could have learned this when I was 15 years old. Then you go, well, you know what I probably did in some gym class and I probably was thinking, I'm a racquetball and a tennis player, which I was a racquetball player as well, so, you know, I was. Pickleball was probably nothing. It's probably like, here's your two weeks on pickleball, and now that you've gone through your two weeks on pickleball, let's go to badminton. And after badminton, let's go to something else. And I remember tennis, we probably played that for eight to ten weeks. And racquetball, we played for at least eight to ten weeks. I do not think we played pickleball for eight to ten weeks. [00:27:29] Speaker A: Well, you were fortunate to be able to do that in high school. Not all high schools have rackets or paddles or nets. [00:27:35] Speaker B: That was in the eighties, mid eighties, yeah. 84, 85, 86. [00:27:39] Speaker A: Still, I would say that's still pretty. [00:27:41] Speaker B: Fortunate, probably, but that was a really popular racket time in our world. Like, there was tennis courts all over the place, popping up in bubbles, racquetball courts everywhere. Like, it was just racquet sports were a big, big deal back then. And I don't mean just tennis, I mean racket sports. [00:27:56] Speaker A: I wish I could say that our school systems here have what they need for those two sports. There are grants available there and I'm a wonderful. And those are. I think that's something that my workplace is going to start looking into for the area schools. But, I mean, we're in Indiana, so basketball is baby hunts. Oh, yeah. It's still the game. Um, and it's, it's hard to break that. Break into that, um, that shell like people, you know? Well, I mean, they don't want to give it up. [00:28:32] Speaker B: Kids grow up here thinking they're going to become basketball stars. They don't come up here. [00:28:35] Speaker A: Well, there's a lot of basketball stars that have come out of Indiana. [00:28:38] Speaker B: Yes, definitely. [00:28:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:39] Speaker B: Including one mister Larry Bird. [00:28:41] Speaker A: Exactly. And the wingspan? I mean, like, on these players. [00:28:45] Speaker B: Did you say the wingspan? [00:28:46] Speaker A: Yeah, the wingspan. [00:28:47] Speaker B: Wingspan. [00:28:48] Speaker A: Whatever basketball players have the past. [00:28:52] Speaker B: It's the wingspan, fingertip to fingertip. [00:28:57] Speaker A: Luckily, we have a. We have a tall. We have tall kids. [00:29:00] Speaker B: I just want to thank you, sky, publicly. [00:29:03] Speaker A: Aw. [00:29:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Appreciate it very much. [00:29:06] Speaker A: You're gonna make me cry. [00:29:07] Speaker B: Heck, no. [00:29:08] Speaker A: I hope not. You don't have any tissues in here. [00:29:10] Speaker B: Oh, there's some behind me, but. [00:29:11] Speaker A: Oh, I see them. [00:29:12] Speaker B: No kidding. [00:29:14] Speaker A: Well, you're welcome. [00:29:16] Speaker B: Yeah. I am truly grateful. [00:29:17] Speaker A: And I have to say, I want to thank you for being patient with the rest of your family, because we did not hop on the pickleball bandwagon as fast as you. [00:29:27] Speaker B: Disappointing, to be honest with you. [00:29:30] Speaker A: What? [00:29:34] Speaker B: I mean, I want to retire to a cruise ship that has pickleball on it. [00:29:37] Speaker A: I will say, we have given you. We have given you space to learn it. [00:29:43] Speaker B: Oh, that's a total different episode. [00:29:44] Speaker A: Yeah. We have given you space to learn it. [00:29:47] Speaker B: Sometimes it's because you left the house. [00:29:50] Speaker A: No. That sounds like I'm so mad at. [00:29:52] Speaker B: You because you're always playing pickleball. I'm out of here. [00:29:54] Speaker A: No, it's just. I don't know how many times the kids are like, where's dad? I'm like, yes. They're like, pickleball. Listen. Yep. [00:29:59] Speaker B: Caesar, if you're listening, it wasn't as much as it sounds like. [00:30:02] Speaker A: That's his business partner. He has to say that. [00:30:07] Speaker B: That was before I got re busy. [00:30:09] Speaker A: This part's probably gonna get deleted. Lots of people. No, it was about your health, though. It was. It was. [00:30:18] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm not. I'm not. [00:30:20] Speaker A: Was planted. Was because we wanted. [00:30:22] Speaker B: I'm not a skinny, fast athlete like I used to be. I'm still a big dude. I am way more mobile than I have been in the last 15 years. Yeah, but. [00:30:32] Speaker A: And happier. [00:30:33] Speaker B: Yes. [00:30:35] Speaker A: The joy. The joy you have when you're playing. [00:30:38] Speaker B: Oh, it's so fun. [00:30:39] Speaker A: And the friends that you have. [00:30:41] Speaker B: So fun. [00:30:41] Speaker A: Lifelong friends now. [00:30:43] Speaker B: Well, I think, sky, this is a good space to stop. Let's, um. We're gonna have some good episodes, I think. [00:30:49] Speaker A: I think so. [00:30:49] Speaker B: One of my favorites is called my dupers and the Pooper. That's coming up. So. [00:30:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:53] Speaker B: So we'll do that episode in a few weeks. Definitely an episode on what it's like to be the wife of a pickleball. [00:31:00] Speaker A: Player or the spouse. Because it's. [00:31:02] Speaker B: Yeah, that's totally fair. [00:31:03] Speaker A: In our case, serious sure. [00:31:06] Speaker B: Female players. Yeah, absolutely. My buddy Jessica is one of them. [00:31:11] Speaker A: Leave their spouse in the dust. Yep. [00:31:13] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know about the dust. Well they leave them at home to dust, dust and ditch. [00:31:19] Speaker A: If only, if only my husband would stay home and dust. [00:31:22] Speaker B: So yeah. And we'll maybe do a few other episodes on some funky things we did by the way, graduate away from the wooden paddles, worried about us and wondering. [00:31:29] Speaker A: I do have a few favorites. Yep. [00:31:31] Speaker B: I have a house full of petals at this point. [00:31:34] Speaker A: That's true. [00:31:35] Speaker B: Thanks for listening everybody. We will be back. We should get a. We need a name for this podcast. [00:31:39] Speaker A: Well we'll come back with a name. [00:31:41] Speaker B: That's a great idea. We'll give you our name on episode two. Cheers. [00:31:54] Speaker A: I'm a prodigy logically I'm impossibly wanted then they'll remember my name they'll remember my name and oh.